STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- Hunt for Red August

Monday

When United States senators assume their awesome responsibilities at the beginning of each Congress, they take an oath that has its roots in the nation's most bitter period of division.

Concerned about Confederate traitors in government, Congress retooled the recitation in the early days of the Civil War, and two decades later settled on the version repeated today by senators and other federal officials who solemnly pledge to defend the legal foundations of the United States "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

For Rep. Geoff Diehl, a Whitman Republican who is running for Senate, the notion of a domestic enemy made for a potent -- and headline-grabbing -- political quip against his would-be opponent, incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

"Russia is not the old Soviet Union, and so to me the bigger threat is someone like Elizabeth Warren," Diehl said during the first debate between Republican Senate primary opponents hosted by Boston Herald Radio Aug. 7. Referring to her views on taxation, Diehl said, "She seems to be the new Communist regime here in the United States."

Though no fan of Warren's, John Kingston, another Republican candidate for Senate, cautioned Diehl "about the false equivalence of our domestic disagreements with somebody like Elizabeth Warren and actually acting as if they're worse than a foreign adversary." Diehl, chastened, said he was being "facetious," and campaign consultant Holly Robichaud later called the statement a "joke," and left it at that.

After winning the support of the Republican convention in April, Diehl had been acting a bit more like a general election candidate, voting for an increase in the tobacco-purchase age for instance. Diehl's broadside against a phantom Fifth Column of communists might betray a need to shore things up with his right flank.

Beth Lindstrom, the third Republican Senate candidate, staked out moderate ground around Russia and her belief that the investigation by independent counsel Robert Mueller needs to "take its course."

Warren, who has focused her ire on the president and other Republicans already in Washington, didn't have much to say about Diehl's comments after a campaign event in Woburn Aug. 8.

"The Republicans will sort that out for themselves," Warren said. "This is up to the Republicans to decide what person they want to represent them."

With fewer than four weeks until the Sept. 4 primary and little of consequence happening on Beacon Hill -- aside from a slew of major bills quietly being signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker Aug. 9 and 10 -- Diehl was hardly alone in taking some big swings.

For starters, Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim tussled with Secretary of State William Galvin over early voting, election cybersecurity and third-party campaign spending. The 34-year-old, who was still about seven years shy of voting age when Galvin was first elected to the statewide office, blamed the incumbent for the legislative demise of a bill to institute early voting before the primary, even though Galvin had lobbied legislators to pass it, and said he would offer a fresh approach to cybersecurity.

MIT's Election Data + Science Lab published a ranking sloting Massachusetts as eighth-best for its administration of elections in 2016.

On Aug. 9, Galvin flipped from defense to offense and publicly called upon Zakim to reject any outside financial support in the challenger's bid to dislodge him in September. It is the latest iteration of an electoral innovation that began during Warren's successful challenge to former Sen. Scott Brown in 2012. The "People's Pledge" is a somewhat groan-inducing prophylactic against the extremely groan-inducing blitz of pre-election ads funded by super PACs. Zakim, who learned about Galvin's offer through the news, rejected the proposal Aug. 10.

Any political giant-slayers hoping to topple one of their own party members had to pause for a moment to mark the death Aug. 6 of Margaret Heckler, whose path to Congress ran through her fellow Republican, Joseph Martin. Martin was a 42-year incumbent who had served as speaker of the House twice, when Heckler defeated him in the 1966 primary.

Heckler, who was already the first woman elected to the Governor's Council, became the first Massachusetts woman elected to Congress who did not succeed her husband, according to the Boston Globe.

If Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley can convince 7th District Democratic primary voters to oust 10-term incumbent Congressman Michael Capuano, she would become the first black woman that Bay State voters send to Capitol Hill.

But it will be a steep road to victory for Pressley, who has trailed the Somerville Democrat by about a dozen percentage points throughout the race and so far failed to open up many real gaps between the two liberals on policy matters -- though the two disagree about how to address Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Capuano wants to reform.

"I do not think it is an agency that can be reformed from the inside-out," Pressley said during an Aug. 7 debate with Capuano hosted by the Globe, WBUR and UMass Boston's McCormack School. "We're at a watershed moment when we are ripping children from the arms of their parents, and the president has to be ordered to not give children psychotropic drugs."

William Gross already succeed in dismantling an old racial barrier when he was sworn in Aug. 6 as Boston's new police commissioner, the first black leader in charge of the whole department.

"In 1983, as a Boston Police cadet, if you ever told me I'd be here right now, I'd be like, 'No way.' Not a glass ceiling, but a brick ceiling," Gross said at Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan, according to WBUR.

The two Democrats vying to face off against Baker have mostly railed against the Republican governor's resistance to a broad tax increase to provide more financing for the MBTA and other priorities around the state. Jay Gonzalez has some ideas, including an approach similar to one attempted by his old boss, former Gov. Deval Patrick, to hike the income tax rate while raising exemptions so as to lessen the burden on lower-earners. But Gonzalez says he won't put out a formal tax plan until, and if, he is elected and can consult with the Revenue Department.

Bob Massie, meanwhile, has some novel ideas for filling state coffers, including exporting green energy and taking a cut of the proceeds. Massie also wants to tap into real estate investors' transactions as a revenue source and raise fees on trucks and private buses, whose heavy weights add stress to tarmac, while lowering prices for green vehicles such as electric cars. That last proposal could, of course, increase costs on those who use inter-city private bus companies for their commutes that are not served by the MBTA or any of the regional transit authorities.

The bus industry doesn't like it.

"While we understand the desire to raise funds for transportation for RTA, it should not come at the cost of motorcoaches already providing the service the RTA does not," said Peter Pantuso, president and CEO of the American Bus Association, in a statement to the News Service.

A spokesperson for Massie acknowledged that if higher fees are imposed, those private buses companies "may alter their price structure," but said those fees would help finance transit.

All that could make for a hotly contested primary if anyone is paying attention in the waning days of August.

Politics inside the State House continued to tremble with aftershocks from the dramatic end of session that left advocates for unions, public education funding and health care reform searching for someone to blame for the lack of action by the Legislature.

AFL-CIO President Steve Tolman is "p---ed off" that House Speaker Robert DeLeo didn't push through what many unions -- but not the Teamsters -- saw as the appropriate legal framework for public sector unions after the U.S. Supreme Court uprooted their ability to require dues from non-members.

"Something's wrong in there when one person, or two or three, is controlling everything," Tolman huffed to the News Service.

In a week so humid and muggy that pedestrians might be advised to wait 30 minutes after eating before venturing onto a sidewalk, people in Webster dealt with the aftermath of a tornado that ripped through town Aug. 4, while Senate President Karen Spilka's home in Ashland was struck by lightning late Aug. 8.

Transit commuters from East Boston and the North Shore might feel that transit improvements are a little overdue after a Blue Line train broke down because of a power problem Aug. 9 on its way out of Maverick Station, Aquarium-bound. Hundreds of passengers had to walk through the tunnel to an emergency exit.

Also last week, the governor without ceremony -- or much notice -- dispatched a raft of bills that had reached his desk at the end of formal sessions.

On Aug. 9, Baker signed new laws to (deep breath) promote clean energy, protect pets, expand treatment for opioid addiction, provide relief to first-responders addicted to cigarettes, automatically register voters who show up at the RMV or MassHealth, offer new benefits to veterans and authorize debt-financed spending on environmental resources, among others.

While the governor did not make a lot of noise about these proposals becoming laws, they will make a difference, smoothing access to the voting booth, continuing the shift toward renewable energy and introducing medically assisted addiction treatment to prisons.

Baker has been an outspoken supporter of offering consumers a sales tax holiday, and earlier this year signed a law that will make that an annual event starting next year. But the governor left it until about the last possible minute to approve a sales tax holiday last weekend. The proposal was contained in an economic development that Baker signed Aug. 10, while vetoing new penalties for patent trolls and sending back to the Legislature another six provisions with amendments.